Spanish model Miriam Sánchez opened Carolina Herrera‘s Spring 2026 runway show on Thursday in Madrid’s Plaza Mayor, a presentation with which Wes Gordon, the brand’s creative director, sought to pen a love letter to the city, which he described as a place of striking contrasts, character and great beauty.

It was the first time the brand had shown a main collection outside New York and the third international presentation, after Rio de Janeiro and Mexico, in its 44-year history.

The ties of the brand’s founder, Carolina Herrera, and her family to Spain, especially her daughter Carolina Adriana, who lives there with her children, were instrumental in the decision to hold this fashion show in the heart of Habsburg Madrid, not forgetting that the brand is part of the Spanish group Puig.

The square has hosted everything from popular celebrations to coronations, bullfights and beatifications, but never until now a runway show, which drew onlookers and tourists who settled on the square’s café terraces to enjoy a luxury catwalk with a front-row view.

Others appeared on balconies, in attic windows and even on rooftops, and many pressed against the barriers surrounding the cordoned-off area.

It was a place that Gordon fell in love with and transformed with pale pink gazebos, where guests were seated and happily sang along to the all-Spanish soundtrack that accompanied the show.

International Spanish models including Esther Cañadas, Blanca Padilla and Maika Merino took to a runway stretching over a kilometre, in designs that captured quintessential Madrid and the fine workmanship of its artisans, conceived for a global woman.

“Madrid has always been one of my favourite cities in the world, rich in history, art and culture,” said the designer, who was inspired by the city’s rhythm, its appetite for life, its energy that “connects deeply with the Herrera woman”.

The collection pays tribute to women such as Paloma Picasso and Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart, Duchess of Alba, figures that embody, for the designer, drama and modernity.

The models traversed the central area of the square in looks featuring three floral motifs emblematic of Madrid: the carnation, rendered in embroidery and jacquards; the violet, a nod to the city’s signature sweets with three-dimensional embroideries; and the Retiro rose, cultivated in the park’s historic rose garden.

Gordon sought to capture on fabric the palette of Goya’s skies and the chromatic intensity of Almodóvar’s films, playing with saffron tones that rise to Herrera red before deepening into burgundy; the electric pink of Madrid’s blazing sunsets; lilac-violet; pure white; and black, as in the spectacular dress that opened the show.

Bullfighting references appeared in silhouettes with hip volumes evoking a torero’s montera, and in fitted trousers recalling Goyesque breeches.

Gordon also nodded to Madrid at its most traditional with sleeves inspired by chulapa dresses—strong shoulders, cinched waists and ruffled skirts—reinterpreted through the Herrera lens.

The collection was a true ode to the city in its textures as well: wool in checks that echoed the cobblestones of the Plaza Mayor; airy lace recalling the mantillas sold in shops on the square; and Lurex lattice embroideries evoking the grilles on its windows.

The brand stayed true to its passion for polka dots, a highly personal code in every collection, with ruffled dresses defined by sculptural lines.

As on other occasions when Carolina Herrera has shown outside New York, the house enriched its offering with special collaborations with local artisans, which in this case highlighted Spanish craftsmanship.

Such was the case of Sybilla, who brought her avant-garde sensibility to three dresses that dovetailed with Carolina Herrera’s DNA, drawing on her personal “invisible thread” and singular approach to pattern-cutting.

Palomo reinterpreted the brand’s iconic white shirt, adding ruffled collars and nods to vintage tailoring, blending his romanticism with the house’s clean lines.

Capas Seseña, a classic in the history of Madrid, founded in 1901, paid tribute to dandyism and to the style of Reinaldo Herrera, Carolina’s husband who died in March this year, with a garment the couple always loved to wear.

Andrés Gallardo, a master of porcelain jewellery, crafted brooches, earrings and pendants inspired by the carnation, the emblematic flower of San Isidro, with pearls predominating; while the firm Levens, specialising in glass jewellery with organic shapes, adorned several looks with petals and droplets of water.

The day ended with a party at which the brand unveiled its new fragrance, La Bomba, fronted by model Vittoria Ceretti.